The seller’s market could be finally slowing down as the calendar flips to 2019.
A new report from Zillow reveals there could be a cooling off in home prices in Los Angeles in 2019, Curbed reported.
While that is a bit of good news for potential homebuyers, it doesn’t mean that all of the housing stock will suddenly become affordable by most standards. Prices are still expected to climb 5 percent in the L.A. metropolitan area, which includes Orange County.
Still, that’s lower than the 7.7 percent growth estimate for the rest of the country. Real estate experts interviewed by Zillow also predicted L.A. will “underperform” the nationwide average in terms of home-value appreciation.
As of October, the median home price in L.A. stayed flat at $595,000, according to CoreLogic.
Some of that is due to the fact that L.A. was among the first to bounce back from the recession. Other cities lagged in the amount of time it took to get median home prices back to their normal levels. Now that seller’s market, characterized by cash offers and multiple bids, may be losing steam.
A limited amount of housing stock is also a big culprit. An April report by consulting firm ECONorthwest found California is short by 3.4 million units of housing, accounting for more than half of the 7.3 million-unit nationwide deficit. [Curbed] – Natalie Hoberman